Rapper Lil Wayne arrested for drug possession

Rap music artist Lil Wayne is shown in a police booking photo after being arrested for felony drug possession, January 23, 2008. REUTERS/Handout

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Rapper Lil Wayne was arrested for felony drug possession early on Wednesday when his charter bus was stopped at a California-Arizona border checkpoint, authorities said.

Lil Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., was arrested in southwestern Arizona on suspicion of possessing cocaine and ecstasy, as well as drug paraphernalia, authorities said. He was being held in Yuma County Jail on a $10,185 bond.

Two other passengers on the bus, Curtis Stewart and Harold Johnson, were arrested for marijuana possession, said Capt. Eben Bratcher, a Yuma County Sheriff’s spokesman.

Border patrol agents stopped the bus at about 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday after a dog alerted them to possible drugs on board, Bratcher said.

The bus, with 12 people on board, had been traveling east from California.

A further inspection found 105 grams (3.7 ounces) of marijuana, 29 grams (1 ounce) of cocaine, 41 grams (1.45 ounces) of ecstasy and more than $22,000, agents said.

Also recovered was a .40 caliber pistol registered to Carter in Florida and authorities were checking to determine whether he broke any gun laws, said Ramona Sanchez, a Drug Enforcement Administration spokeswoman in Phoenix.

This is not the first brush with authorities for Carter, who comes from New Orleans and was proclaimed rapper of the year in August 2007 by The New Yorker magazine.

His previous legal trouble came in July, when he was arrested in New York after being found smoking marijuana and carrying a weapon.

Reporting by David Schwartz, Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Stuart Grudgings